Space Engineers - Automated Mobile Drilling Rig/Refinery Concept
This mobile mining/drilling platform concept is my solution to harvesting the deep planetary/moon ores that exist in the game without tethering too many pistons.
Using a projector and welders to weld loops of "drill bit extenders" that use merge blocks and connectors, i'm able to extend the drill bit down into the deep voxels where the rare ores reside. Then, once the drill bit has penetrated to that depth, the side pistons activate and gather ore in a radius of 7 large blocks (over 35m diameter) underground circles.
This is still a concept and needs to be refined further. Future functionality for this machine is grinding the drill bit back into the rover for portability and reusability in different spots without wasting components used on the drill bit extenders.